


Alex and Luke enter fatherhood

by alley_oops, jennandanica



Series: Citadel: Luke Evans and Alex Skarsgard [176]
Category: Actor RPF, Citadel (Journalfen RPG), True Blood RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 12:03:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14104971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alley_oops/pseuds/alley_oops, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennandanica/pseuds/jennandanica





	Alex and Luke enter fatherhood

[backdated to mid-November, 2015; one week after [Alex and Luke rushed to Sweden](http://alex-skarsgard.dreamwidth.org/10528.html)]

"Can you wet this again?" Luke asks Alex, handing him the barely damp and all-too-warm facecloth he's been using to cool Elin's brow. They've been staying at the top of the bed, out of the way, as nurses and the doctor check on the mother-to-be every few minutes. It's probably longer than that in between visits but Luke's lost all track of time, all track of anything other than what's happening right here, right now. "Do you want some more ice chips?"

"No," Elin gasps, shaking her head. "Just give me your hand. Quick," she orders Luke, and grabs his arm. "I think–!" Another contraction surges through her and her words dissolve into a loud groan, the sound gritted through her teeth.  
  
"Fucking hell," Alex mutters, staring at his sister. He darts an anxious glance at Luke and hopes Elin isn't snapping any of his bones clear through. "Will you just take the painkillers already?"  
  
She hisses at him, her blue eyes flashing. "No. I said no! Listen to me, idiot!"  
  
"Crap." Looking up at his husband on the other side of the bed, Alex murmurs, "Is this that irrational stage of labor? The one we read about?"  
  
His timing couldn't be worse. "Fuck you!" Elin snaps, seizing on her brother as a safe target.  
  
"Only four minutes apart, good," the midwife says in approval. "I'll go let the doctor know."

Luke winces, gritting his teeth as Elin rides out the contraction. Fuck. "Both of you, stop it," he orders. "But you especially," he tells his husband, giving him a look that clearly says _think_.

Alex shoots him a wounded look in return, but then surrenders and goes to the room's corner sink to thoroughly wet the cloth once again. He'd be the first to admit that he doesn't understand why Elin is going all cavewoman on this birth and trying to do it without drugs. "If I were having a baby, I'd take the drugs in a fucking second," he says, but keeps it safely under his breath. He hands the facecloth back to Luke, and quirks a brow as the petite obstetrician strolls into the room.  
  
The doctor looks at Elin and then takes a glance at the fetal monitor with its doubled screen, two squiggly lines per twin. And, with a practiced medical smile, she unleashes a babble of rapid Swedish on Elin.  
  
Frowning, Alex circles the bed to stand with his husband. "The doctor says that was long enough to try," he murmurs, trying to translate and listen at the same time. "Because it's twins, so it's a high-risk pregnancy..." He takes Elin's hand in his and gives it a gentle squeeze. "She says the heartbeats are slowing down with the constructions – contractions, I mean – and we can't wait any longer." A moment of hesitation, then he tells his husband, "They need to do a C-section." _Fuck_.  
  
"Can we still be in there?" Luke asks, wiping Elin's brow as he looks from his husband to the doctor and back again. They'd been aware this might happen but still. Surgery. He knows it's not what Elin wanted.

Alex relays the question and then nods at the doctor's answer. "Yeah," he assures his husband. "They'll help us put on surgery clothes and then we can stand by Elin's head." His sister swipes tears of pain and frustration from her cheeks and he leans in to meet her eyes. "Hey," he says softly, even as the midwife starts coiling up an IV line and a nurse brandishes paperwork to be signed. "This is great news, El," he insists gently, and gives her a smile. "You're having your babies today."

Luke glances up from the paperwork at that and smiles at them both, his heart swelling with love for his husband. He makes sure everything gets signed and gives Elin a quick kiss on the cheek as they're ushered away to get ready to go into the operating room. He blows out a breath, wishing suddenly his mum and dad knew they were here, that the babies are coming. "This is crazy," he tells Alex instead, pushing the thoughts away. He'll call his nana and gransha when he gets a chance.  
  
Struck dumb for the moment, Alex nods. There's a flurry of activity taking place around them, but in this instant it feels like he and Luke could be the calm still point at the center of a whirl of chaos. He puts his arms around his husband and brings him in tight, kissing Luke with all the excitement and love in his heart.  
  
Luke beams at Alex and kisses him back, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. "I never thought I'd be doing this," he whispers.

Alex's answering smile is genuine and open, so unaffected it verges on downright goofy. "Me, either," he admits, staring into his beloved's shining eyes. "You're the one, _älskling_. The only one in the world I could ever build this life with. The only one I want." A green-garbed tech barks an order at Alex and he steps back, although he keeps tight hold of Luke's hand for another moment before letting go. Once they're totally gowned up, masks pulled down around their necks and paper hats covering their heads, another tech walks them through the procedure for thoroughly washing, all the way up to their elbows. Only _then_ are they finally permitted to enter the Operating Room. Elin is laid out on a surgical table, her black-dyed hair tucked up beneath a cap like theirs, an IV tube piercing her arm and another tube getting taped into place on her back before a nurse helps her lie down completely flat.  
  
"Misters," a tech says, and pushes two rolling stools by the head of Elin's table, indicating that Alex and Luke should take their seats.

"I don't think I can sit," Luke says after a moment. "Can I stand in the same place?" he asks, not caring who answers as long as someone does.  
  
"Yes, but you must stay there," a nurse tells him, pointing to the same spot.  
  
Alex sits and reaches out to hold Luke's hand, then takes Elin's hand as well. They're connected, a solid unit. "You're amazing," he whispers, pressing a kiss to his sister's brow. "You're so awesome."  
  
"Don't try to compliment me. I already promised I'd give them to you," Elin retorts, but the brittle facade is clearly only that, as evidenced by a fresh tear tracking down her temple.  
  
Luke gives a soft laugh and squeezes Alex's hand. "Just think. They're going to be here soon," he says, hoping to distract her from the fact of the birth not going the way she wanted it to and maybe even distract himself from the reality of what they're going to do to get the babies here.  
  
The anesthesiologist looks over the drape at Elin and asks her a question, and Elin blinks at him. " _Vad?_ "  
  
Which is apparently the right answer. "He said, 'Do you feel that?' and she didn't," Alex murmurs in explanation to his husband. "Now the surgeon is warning her that she'll feel some pressure, some tugging... You can't see over that thing, can you?" Alex asks Luke in alarm, gesturing at the barrier blocking Elin's view of her own pregnant belly.  
  
"Not really." Luke shakes his head. What he can see is only the doctor and nurses, their arms moving, doing who knows what.  
  
"Okay, good." Personally Alex considers himself to have a fairly strong stomach, but he knows there's no way he can watch _this_. The air in the room is attentive but calm, the surgeon's movements appear sure, and he tries to remember to stay chill for everyone else's sake.

Luke gives him an odd look and then drops a kiss on the top of his head. "I love you."

Glancing up to meet his husband's eyes, Alex smiles crookedly. _Love you_ , he mouths back before Elin groans and he instantly tenses up again.  
  
"Oh my god, that feels so incredibly weird," she mutters, frowning, then immediately rushes to reassure her brother. "No, it doesn't hurt, it's just really strange, like they're pulling on me or something."  
  
A nurse looks over, her eyes twinkling above her sterile surgical mask. "You are ready to meet your babies?" she asks, an instant before a thin cry pierces the air.  
  
Alex would swear his heart stops.  
  
"A beautiful girl," someone announces, lifting a squirming red creature above the barrier.

"Kaja Elin," Luke tells Elin, smiling, unable to stop, his voice filled with awe.  
  
Tears stand in Elin's eyes, and she lifts her head trying to get more than a brief glimpse of the screaming infant before a nurse hustles the baby away. "What?" she asks Luke, unsure now whether she feels so woozy because of the drugs or because of the moment.  
  
"She's named for you. It was Luke's idea," Alex says, gobsmacked and staring. "Was that...? What just...?"  
  
Before he can make sense of his own question, another wail adds to the sudden surreal noise. "And Baby B is a healthy boy," a nurse announces in heavily accented English. "His sister and him just need a little extra oxygen, and then you can hold them."

"And that's Rhys Niklas," Luke says happily, smiling at his husband and the mother of their babies. "Evans-Skarsgard, because Alex is changing his name."

"Uh-huh." Elin swallows hard around the lump in her throat, unconsciously lifting her arms to reach out for her children. "Whose name is Alex changing?"  
  
"Mine, El," Alex tells her, but fuck if he feels anymore coherent right now than she sounds. "I'm taking Luke's last name. Our whole family will match." He grabs Luke's hand and squeezes it tight, getting to his feet as one of the nurses approaches with a big smile on her face and a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.  
  
"Here, Mommy," she says, and helps Elin sit up a bit to hold Kaja for the first time.  
  
"And who is Pappa?" a blue-gowned man asks, looking from Alex to Luke and back.  
  
"He is," Alex says, swiping the back of his hand over his eyes. Trying like hell to keep his shit together when the man puts tiny Rhys Niklas into Luke's arms.  
  
Luke blinks hard, staring at the tiny bundle. At the tiny face and tiny hands, those eyes gazing up at him, unfocused but unwavering as well. And he can't help it. Tears slide down his cheeks as he whispers, "Hey, little guy..."

It's difficult to look anywhere other than those enchanting faces, but Alex finds himself transfixed and staring at his husband. And it's as if the world shifts beneath his feet. The moment staggers him, out of synch with the cosmos, and he knows it will remain this vivid in his memory forever. He slips his arm around his husband and smiles down at their children.


End file.
